Crush
by Mishiru
Summary: Anzu reflects on her feelings for Yami and Yuugi


Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh belongs to Kazuki Takahashi and Shounen Jump, and Viz,, and everyone else who has the copyright.  
  
Author's notes: First off, I'd like to warn you all that this is a fic based on the manga. The anime I've seen is the American dub, which cut out the first part of the series entirely, for reasons I can sort of understand, but nevertheless don't agree with. (If you're gonna show a series in which the main character regularly deals out madness and death, don't put it with the Saturday morning cartoons in the first place, instead of cutting out gargantuan portions of the show!)   
  
What little of Yuugi's early experiences with the Millennium Puzzle is shown in the Pegasus arc is unworthy of mentioning, at best, and at worst, I suspect those flashbacks may actually have been completely fabricated. The French manga gives us a much more detailed version of the circumstances concerning the building of the Millennium puzzle, as well as a more interesting introduction of Bakura, and a longer and much more exciting version of the events leading up to Yami and Pegasus' first confrontation. More to the point, more attention is given to the relationships involving Yuugi, Anzu and Yami. I thought it would be a very interesting experience to write a fic on Anzu's point of view concerning Yuugi, Yami and her feelings for them.  
  
Crush  
  
One day, the Millennium Puzzle will return to the tomb from which it came. When that day comes, what will happen? Will Yami go with the puzzle? Will Yuugi leave too? What will happen to me when that time comes? Will I still be in Domino? Or will I be in New York, pursuing my dream to become a great dancer?  
  
I can't clearly remember the day I first met Yuugi, so long ago. That was when we were in the same kindergarten class, so it's not surprising I don't remember any details. Even then, he was smaller than the other children. Even then, the other children picked on him, so I stood up for him. I'm not sure whether we were so much friends back then as sister and brother. I think Yuugi sort of closed in on himself, so he wouldn't attract any attention, and avoid trouble. I imagine he could play solitaire, or other such little games to keep himself amused. It worked so well that even I didn't pay much attention to him.   
  
Maybe the reason the others picked on him so much was that he won almost any game he played. Only sports gave him any trouble, trouble which they exploited mercilessly.  
  
In fact, I think it was when a couple of our classmates had asked us to play basketball with them that I learned about Yuugi's puzzle. I had refused to play. Lesson number one: Never play basketball in a skirt. That was also the eve of the day Yuugi and Jounouchi became friends and the eve of the day Yuugi solved the puzzle. I don't know the details, but Yuugi tells me that was also when his blackouts first started.  
  
Yuugi can enumerate all his blackouts, and give details of the circumstances in which they occurred; he did it for me. They represent all the times Yami came out, up until the time Yuugi first consciously relinquished control to Yami, during the Death-T, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  
  
One of the blackouts I thought was extremely pertinent. The first day I came to work at Burger World, Yuugi and Jounouchi followed me there. The next person to enter the building was an escaped serial killer, who took me hostage and blindfolded me. Then he asked Yuugi to serve him alcohol and cigarettes. I'd gotten up and shouted to Yuugi not to come, and as a result got slapped.  
  
Yuugi tells me it was right after I got slapped that he blacked out. From what I could heard, the person that served the serial killer alcohol and cigarettes and then sat down across from him couldn't possibly be Yuugi. Yuugi wasn't a coward, but he wasn't suicidal, either: he'd never play games with a gun-toting killer. And although the voice sounded like Yuugi's, it had none of his verbal mannerisms, and was much too confident.  
  
Through the game, this person managed to maneuver the killer into a checkmate position, where anything the escaped convict did would result in his setting fire to himself. The person dragged me out of the booth before the killer exploded into flames. By the time I untied my blindfold, Yuugi tells me he'd recovered from his blackout. But I'd fallen in love with my mysterious savior, whose face I never saw.  
  
There was another time I thought I'd come across him, but for some reason I felt sleepy and couldn't stay awake. It wasn't until the Death-T that I realized that it was Yami who'd saved me from the serial killer.   
  
The Death-T was a sick and twisted top-of-the-line technological game devised by Kaiba in an attempt to kill Yuugi. I was actually hired to take part in the first stage of the game, although I wasn't aware of its real purpose. Jounouchi, Honda and I, and Honda's two-year-old brat cousin, Jorgie, who was along for the ride, all got involved in helping Yuugi get through the game, and we did pretty well until the third stage, when we'd thought Honda had died.   
  
Yuugi was about to have another one of his blackouts, or in other words, Yami was bristling to come to the fore, but Yuugi was suppressing him. We noticed something was wrong, and Yuugi confessed he felt like sometimes there was another person inside him, that it frightened him, that he hadn't said anything because he was afraid that if he had, we'd avoid him. We assured him we'd always be good friends.  
  
When we got to the fourth stage, Yuugi decided to let Yami take over. Once I'd seen Yami in action, I thought to myself Yuugi had grown up, that he wasn't the scared little boy anymore. That he'd faced his fears. I'm not sure whether it was pride I felt at the thought, or something stronger.  
  
I should have known. It would have been Yuugi's style to challenge opponents to games, if he'd had the confidence. And I had seen Yami briefly before, shortly after recovering from Shahdi's mind-control, as did Jounouchi. In fact, we even suspected Yuugi seemed different then, not to mention that before Shahdi got to me, he was saying something about wanting to meet the other Yuugi. Also, there was that time when a classmate of ours, Hanasaki, told us an incredible story about how Yuugi outsmarted three punks who had beaten Hanasaki up. It really didn't sound like something sweet little Yuugi would have done. I should have known...  
  
After the Death-T, my mysterious savior had a face. Yami's face. My crush on him even became rather perilous to me. In order to meet Yami, I once consciously put myself into grave danger: I ran off in an amusement park where bombs had been placed. The ferris wheel I was riding had a bomb attached to every seat. It definitely wasn't worth it. Although Yami's cute little smirk afterward was really something to see.  
  
I think I realized I love Yuugi that day that Yuugi asked me to talk to Yami, play shrink... The whole excuse was a 'date'. When Yami started talking about how the puzzle must one day return to Egypt, I started thinking about the implications, and I realized that if Yuugi were to leave as well, I wouldn't be able to take it, not just because I wish things would stay the same, as everyone sometimes does, but because I actually love Yuugi.   
  
I don't know when I started loving him. Maybe I always have. Maybe the crush I had, and still, to a minor extent, have on Yami, was and is nothing more than the forlorn wish that Yuugi would grow up... I mean, physically. One thing is for sure, I do love him. Yuugi, I mean...  
  
One day, the Millennium Puzzle will return to the tomb from which it came. When that day comes, what will happen? Will Yami go with the puzzle? Will Yuugi leave too? What will happen to me when that time comes? Will I still be in Domino? Or will I be in New York, pursuing my dream to become a great dancer? 


End file.
